Karl William Scheele
(1742 - 86)

Swedish chemist Karl Wilhelm Scheele discovered "fire air" [oxygen] before Priestley's discovery of "dephlogisticated air" [oxygen]. The author of Chemische Abhandlung von der Luft und dem Feuer [Chemical Treatise on Air and Fire](1777), Scheele also discovered chlorine, tartaric acid, the sensitivity of silver compounds to light, and the oxidation of metals. Scheele died prematurely owing to his habit of inhaling toxic vapours of the agents he investigated.